IEEE Industrial Electronics Society History

Looking Back at 60 Years of IES

Originally published in the September 2011 Issue of Industrial Electronics Magazine, by Okyay Kaynak

The year 2011 is a very special year for the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES): it is our 60th anniversary. You may be surprised that our history goes as far back as the early 1950s. Careful preparations were made to celebrate this very special occasion.

Past President Gerald Cook informed me that more information can be found in a message that he published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics in 1984 [1] about the history of our Society. Thinking that many of our members, especially those who are relatively new to the Society, might welcome such historical facts, I reiterate a few interesting points that he made in his original article. I’ve also added a few.

The first conference of the Society was held in 1975 in Philadelphia with the acronym IECI’75. Until then, only a session was being sponsored at the annual conferences of the IEEE Industry Applications Society.

The first annual event outside the United States was held in Tokyo. The acronym IECON was used for the first time for this event in 1984.

Fumio Harashima served as the IEEE secretary during 1990; Fernando Aldana served as the IEEE vice president for technical activities in 1991; and Troy Nagle made it right to the very top of IEEE and served as the president during 1994.

Quite a few number of our past presidents (and members in general) received awards at the institute level (Harold Edgerton received the Leeds Award in 1965 and Harry Mergler the Lamme Award in 1978).

Many of our members from academia, such as Xavier Uceda, Imre Rudas, Ren Luo, Fumio Harashima, and Jose Rodriguez reached the highest academic positions, serving as
the presidents of universities.

We have always been very internationalized. Fumio Harashima became the third IEEE Society president from outside the United States in 1986 (after the IEEE Signal Processing Society President R.A. Kaenel from Switzerland in 1971–1972 and the IEEE
Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society President Ray Bartnikas from
Canada in 1977–1978).

The IES always had a remarkable aptitude for identifying promising emerging technologies and focused its technical activities on them in a timely manner. The technologies include:

microprocessors in the 1970s

robotics in the 1980s

mechatronics and factory automation in the early 1990s

industrial information technology in the late 1990s.

IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics were direct outcomes of these activities. Our publication portfolio has these in addition to our most senior publication, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,
and the youngest one, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine.

In our 60th year, it is appropriate to extend our thanks and appreciation to all the past officers of the Society, the names of whom are listed in ‘‘Past Officers of IES.’’ The dates and locations of the annual meeting are also listed.

In conclusion, a cordial and warm invitation is extended to you to come and join us in Melbourne on 7–10 November for the special celebrations planned in connection with
IECON 2011.

Timeline of important events

February 21, 1951 - First meeting of the IRE Industrial Electronics Group

May 8, 1951 - Name change to IRE Professional Group on Industrial Electronics (PG-IE)

August 1953 - Published the first volume of the Transactions on Professional Group on Industrial Electronics